Best audiophile switch

[audiobomber]

The Melco C100 is a reasonably priced example of this.

I was very hopeful that the C100 would be great sounding cable, but I was disappointed when I had one in-house for couple of weeks. I tried in it various locations in my system. To me, it sounded like a Supra CAT8, bright and detailed, good soundstage but lacking in bass power, and not very musical as a result. I have a Blue Jeans CAT6a, which errs on the other side, too warm, lacking in detail and compressed soundstage. As with anything in audio, YMMV.

I have tried numerous cables that were better than the above, including a couple of generics. I get that tied shields can be problematic, but there are numerous ways around this concern.

 

[jasond]

I bring this up because the best very low budget audiophile switch just might be a used, modified Cisco from eBay.

I can assure you it’s not Over the last couple of years I have done a lot of investigation. The Meraki (especially with further upgrades) is definitely a considerable step compared to most standard switches. And I was among the first in Europe to get the EtherRegen which provided a great platform in those early days to improve further with power supplies, power cords, Ethernet cables, FMC/SFP combos or external clocks.
After a very interesting and long journey - comparing more audiophile switches, filters etc. I ended up with a Muon Pro streaming system and a Tempus switch by Network Acoustics.
It’s really exciting to see what potential there is in a hifi network environment.

 

[kennyb123]

We are anxiously awaiting your results, hopefully today!

It was a fun time with @jeremya and @keithc and a bunch of switches. I think we all agreed we could be happy with any of them, but there were some important differences between them.

It took us a bit of effort to land on the approach. The cable feeding the switches made very obvious difference. The Tempus lost quite a bit when fed with a Cable Matters CAT6a - even to the point where it lost ground relative to the ER fed with optical. Moving fiber over to the Tempus brought a big improvement but since the two other switches don’t have optical inputs, we wanted to avoid using optical. Fortunately Jeremy brought along a QSA Lanedri Ethernet cable. This was a big step up from optical - so much so I think we each said “wow” and laughed about it. So from that point on the QSA-L was used into the switch and the Sigma Ethernet was used out of it.

I would encourage everyone to take my observations with a grain of salt as we were pretty casual about the process. We limited the time spent listening to tracks and really only listened to a couple of them. The three contenders (PhoenixNET, Synergistic, Tempus) were each plugged initially into the wall (a spare dedicated circuit) using a Shunyata Venom V14 power cord. The ER was given an advantage initially as it was plugged into my Denali v1 using a Shunyata V14 Digital power cord. We later moved that cord over to our two favorites to see how much difference it would make. The ER used the reference clock from the REF10 SE 120 the entire time to keep things more equal in terms of retail price.

The PhoenixNET was eliminated early as it was easily bested by the Tempus with the Phoenix sounded veiled in comparison. Part of the reason also is that four switches was just one too many as far as being able to do fair comparisons. We started losing track of things. Reducing down to three helped. Also, there PhoenixNET might have been put at a disadvantage because its clock apparently needs at least 24 hours to settle back in.

The Tempus was definitely my favorite. I was sitting in the center seat when the guys switched over to the Tempus.We were listening to Diana Krall singing A Case of You from her live album. The piano sounded so much more real and beautiful that I started to tear up. I then gasped when she started singing as her voice became so clear an present.

The Synergistic switch came in second. It was still veiled relative to the Tempus, but not as badly so as the Phoenix.

Powering the Synergistic and Tempus switches off the Denali brought a nice improvement. We also had on hand the Synergistic Foundation power cord that came with their switch. This when plugged into the Denali improved the sound of both the Synergistic and Tempus switches but it improved the Tempus even more. The distance between them grew as a result.

The ER came in third. I thought it was closer to the Synergistic than the Synergistic was to the Tempus but the others might not agree. Hopefully they will post their impressions here as well.

I think the biggest surprise to me was how much difference the cable feeding the Tempus made. That Cable Matters copper cable harmed the rise times and it wasn’t subtle. I should point out that this cable had only three days of use as I purchased it at Amazon specifically for this comparison. That just reminded me of our final comparison. We tried the QSA-L directly into the K50 from the wall. It brought all its positives with it but it didn’t obviate the need for a switch to reduce network noise.

Well I think that about covers it. I think my one takeaway is that I will need to purchase a QSA-L Ethernet cable at some point. I believe that might have made as big of a difference as the switches themselves.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

It was a fun time with @jeremya and @keithc and a bunch of switches. I think we all agreed we could be happy with any of them, but there were some important differences between them.

It took us a bit of effort to land on the approach. The cable feeding the switches made very obvious difference. The Tempus lost quite a bit when fed with a Cable Matters CAT6a - even to the point where it lost ground relative to the ER fed with optical. Moving fiber over to the Tempus brought a big improvement but since the two other switches don’t have optical inputs, we wanted to avoid using optical. Fortunately Jeremy brought along a QSA Lanedri Ethernet cable. This was a big step up from optical - so much so I think we each said “wow” and laughed about it. So from that point on the QSA-L was used into the switch and the Sigma Ethernet was used out of it.

I would encourage everyone to take my observations with a grain of salt as we were pretty casual about the process. We limited the time spent listening to tracks and really only listened to a couple of them. The three contenders (PhoenixNET, Synergistic, Tempus) were each plugged initially into the wall (a spare dedicated circuit) using a Shunyata Venom V14 power cord. The ER was given an advantage initially as it was plugged into my Denali v1 using a Shunyata V14 Digital power cord. We later moved that cord over to our two favorites to see how much difference it would make. The ER used the reference clock from the REF10 SE 120 the entire time to keep things more equal in terms of retail price.

The PhoenixNET was eliminated early as it was easily bested by the Tempus with the Phoenix sounded veiled in comparison. Part of the reason also is that four switches was just one too many as far as being able to do fair comparisons. We started losing track of things. Reducing down to three helped.

The Tempus was definitely my favorite. I was sitting in the center seat when the guys switched over to the Tempus.We were listening to Diana Krall singing A Case of You from her live album. The piano sounded so much more real and beautiful that I started to tear up. I then gasped when she started singing as her voice became so clear an present.

The Synergistic switch came in second. It was still veiled relative to the Tempus, but not as badly so as the Phoenix.

Powering the Synergistic and Tempus switches off the Denali brought a nice improvement. We also had on hand the Synergistic Foundation power cord that came with their switch. This when plugged into the Denali improved the sound of both the Synergistic and Tempus switches but it improved the Tempus even more. The distance between them grew as a result.

The ER came in third. I thought it was closer to the Synergistic than the Synergistic was to the Tempus but the others might not agree. Hopefully they will post their impressions here as well.

I think the biggest surprise to me was how much difference the cable feeding the Tempus made. That Cable Matters copper cable harmed the rise times and it wasn’t subtle. I should point out that this cable had only three days of use as I purchased it at Amazon specifically for this comparison. That just reminded me of our final comparison. We tried the QSA-L directly into the K50 from the wall. It brought all its positives with it but it didn’t obviate the need for a switch to reduce network noise.

Well I think that about covers it. I think my one takeaway is that I will need to purchase a QSA-L Ethernet cable at some point. I believe that might have made as big of a difference as the switches themselves.

Kenny thank you for your sharing your results.

 

[Superdad]

Sounds like you all had fun Ken!
Maybe we at UpTone should come out with a $4,200 switch to compete.
Cheers,
—Alex C.

 

[kennyb123]

Sounds like you all had fun Ken!
Maybe we at UpTone should come out with a $4,200 switch to compete.

I wish you lived close enough where you could have joined. Your switch held up quite well. I think we will do another shootout after the ER Gen 2 lands though there may be different contenders.

 

[kennyb123]

I forgot that I snapped a pic.

 

[RnRmf]

^this.

There are some great ethernet cables in audiophileland as we know, but switch-to-streamer is a unique use case: see exchange here https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/ethernet-cables-to-and-from-your-switch.36882/

Ethernet packets of data being what they are, no ethernet cable does digital magic; if we rule out say poorly designed or poorly connected RJ45 plugs, the differences amongst cables are in the effectiveness of their shielding. However, the last thing we want between a switch and a streamer is a shielded cable in which the shield is grounded at both ends; such a shield acts as a conductor of noise and undoes much of the good work of the galvanic isolation in the switch.

All stock Cat8 cables and most leading brands of audiophile ethernet cables have the shield grounded at both ends; If you happen to have a multimeter, you can test this by setting it to resistance (ohms) and placing one probe on either metal plug housing. If it flicks to anything other than zero, there is circuit continuity and the shield is grounded at both ends.

In this particular use case, an unshielded Cat6 cable is perhaps the safest bet. Some expensive ethernet cables will sound different from this Cat6 but this is not a good thing. For the best of both worlds - the protection from environmental RFI offered by a shield but no shield continuity from switch to streamer - find (or make) a shielded cable which has the shield grounded only at one end. The Melco C100 is a reasonably priced example of this.

If I was comparing switches, I'd do so with a stock Cat6 cable. Once I'd settled on a preferred switch, I'd then explore the cable thing.

When I went down this route of trying unshielded ethernet cables, I found some differences in sound between different cables that were labeled as "unshielded." The best cable I found (apart from one other "audio" ethernet cable) is a particular CAT6A that is shielded but the shield is not connected to the connectors at either end.

 

[NigelB]

Hi Nigel,
What is the purpose of making only two of eight ports available?

Fundamentally, every opening in a switch case is an open door for RFI ingress, so the ideal switch will have no holes for LEDs to shine through, no ventilation holes, and no unused ports. The vast majority of music lovers/audiophiles need only to clean up one connection to their streamer, and that obviously requires an input port (RJ45 or SFP) too.
If you want to attach non-audio devices to your network or additional connections for software updates/control, these don’t need to be cleaned up in the same way and you can use a basic switch in parallel with the audio-optimised one for this purpose ie as the port replicator which switches were originally as.

I hope this helps. I’m on this thread to participate in the broader conversation so if you have any specific questions about my kit I’d be delighted to have a 1:1 conversation either by message or voice!

 

[jasond]

Well I think that about covers it. I think my one takeaway is that I will need to purchase a QSA-L Ethernet cable at some point. I believe that might have made as big of a difference as the switches themselves.

Thank you for all your time you put in and the insights! Just a pity you didn’t try / compare a Muon Pro Ethernet cable as this is another big improvement. Maybe you can do so next time.

 

[WAVE High Fidelity]

It was a fun time with @jeremya and @keithc and a bunch of switches. I think we all agreed we could be happy with any of them, but there were some important differences between them.

It took us a bit of effort to land on the approach. The cable feeding the switches made very obvious difference. The Tempus lost quite a bit when fed with a Cable Matters CAT6a - even to the point where it lost ground relative to the ER fed with optical. Moving fiber over to the Tempus brought a big improvement but since the two other switches don’t have optical inputs, we wanted to avoid using optical. Fortunately Jeremy brought along a QSA Lanedri Ethernet cable. This was a big step up from optical - so much so I think we each said “wow” and laughed about it. So from that point on the QSA-L was used into the switch and the Sigma Ethernet was used out of it.

I would encourage everyone to take my observations with a grain of salt as we were pretty casual about the process. We limited the time spent listening to tracks and really only listened to a couple of them. The three contenders (PhoenixNET, Synergistic, Tempus) were each plugged initially into the wall (a spare dedicated circuit) using a Shunyata Venom V14 power cord. The ER was given an advantage initially as it was plugged into my Denali v1 using a Shunyata V14 Digital power cord. We later moved that cord over to our two favorites to see how much difference it would make. The ER used the reference clock from the REF10 SE 120 the entire time to keep things more equal in terms of retail price.

The PhoenixNET was eliminated early as it was easily bested by the Tempus with the Phoenix sounded veiled in comparison. Part of the reason also is that four switches was just one too many as far as being able to do fair comparisons. We started losing track of things. Reducing down to three helped. Also, there PhoenixNET might have been put at a disadvantage because its clock apparently needs at least 24 hours to settle back in.

The Tempus was definitely my favorite. I was sitting in the center seat when the guys switched over to the Tempus.We were listening to Diana Krall singing A Case of You from her live album. The piano sounded so much more real and beautiful that I started to tear up. I then gasped when she started singing as her voice became so clear an present.

The Synergistic switch came in second. It was still veiled relative to the Tempus, but not as badly so as the Phoenix.

Powering the Synergistic and Tempus switches off the Denali brought a nice improvement. We also had on hand the Synergistic Foundation power cord that came with their switch. This when plugged into the Denali improved the sound of both the Synergistic and Tempus switches but it improved the Tempus even more. The distance between them grew as a result.

The ER came in third. I thought it was closer to the Synergistic than the Synergistic was to the Tempus but the others might not agree. Hopefully they will post their impressions here as well.

I think the biggest surprise to me was how much difference the cable feeding the Tempus made. That Cable Matters copper cable harmed the rise times and it wasn’t subtle. I should point out that this cable had only three days of use as I purchased it at Amazon specifically for this comparison. That just reminded me of our final comparison. We tried the QSA-L directly into the K50 from the wall. It brought all its positives with it but it didn’t obviate the need for a switch to reduce network noise.

Well I think that about covers it. I think my one takeaway is that I will need to purchase a QSA-L Ethernet cable at some point. I believe that might have made as big of a difference as the switches themselves.

Thanks for doing that Kenny, and writing up. I know it takes time. (And thanks for your post on the Antipodes Users Forum)

Having done a few similar comparisons in my own system I came down firmly on the side of favouring the PhenixNET so that is what I bought and it has so far seen off all other competitors including those using fiber.

I think the first thing to agree in the context of comparing switches is what is exactly is ‘best’ and what exactly is meant by saying that one hears an ‘improvement’ when using one switch compared to another? Without saying what one actually hears then it is difficult to gauge what improvement the tester heard and whether it was a real improvement or not.

In developing my WAVE cables I have become rather sensitive to the effects of noise and I have come to realise that what is sometimes mentioned as being an improvement such as enhanced detail or bigger soundstage or more lifelike is more likely to be the symptoms of noise artefacts.

I should say at this point that I do not have a dog in this race and I do not have any products in the ethernet cable or switch category.

Initially with all switches I have tried I use the track Spiral Stair by Mammal Hands to get a feel of how well I think the switch is isolating my Oladra streamer from my ethernet network. The track has a wonderfully melodic saxophone as the main theme to the music but there is a quite busy background with many different percussion notes. They give the track a wonderful complexity but depending on the switch used this background can tend towards being more forward and eventually becomes rather incessant and to my ear can distract from the saxophone. I have had some people who have heard that difference and they have described it as more detailed or having a bigger soundstage and therefore is better but I much prefer the calmer presentation of the PhoenixNET. And with that calmer presentation I find that eventually I am actually hearing more real detail of instruments and character of notes as opposed to the false detail created when percussion and plucked notes are artificially emphasised.

I wonder if this is what promoted your comment of the PhoenixNET sounding ‘veiled in comparison’? I was not there so I do not know what you heard but it is possible that if I was there I might have concluded that the calmer presentation was ultimately better and more musical and I might have defended its presenation as actually being better.

None of this is intended as criticism of what you concluded but hopefully you get my point that one man’s improvement or better might equally be another persons worse or degraded sound.

 

[jasond]

ÖNone of this is intended as criticism of what you concluded but hopefully you get my point that one man’s improvement or better might equally be another persons worse or degraded sound.

That definitely is often true when users especially over a long time/years are mainly listening in their own setup and hardly having a chance to listen to other setups in other locations. Judging about the overall performance or improvements has a lot to do with experience of listening to many many systems (like the yearly High-End in Munich is an excellent place showcasing numerous benchmark systems from all over the world) as well as listening to real, live music concerts.
From what I understand @kennyb123 is someone with experience and knows what to look for.

 

[NigelB]

I was very hopeful that the C100 would be great sounding cable, but I was disappointed when I had one in-house for couple of weeks. I tried in it various locations in my system. To me, it sounded like a Supra CAT8, bright and detailed, good soundstage but lacking in bass power, and not very musical as a result. I have a Blue Jeans CAT6a, which errs on the other side, too warm, lacking in detail and compressed soundstage. As with anything in audio, YMMV.

I have tried numerous cables that were better than the above, including a couple of generics. I get that tied shields can be problematic, but there are numerous ways around this concern.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I was talking very specifically about the short distance from switch to streamer only. There are much better cables out there for the rest of the network.

 

[audiobomber]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I was talking very specifically about the short distance from switch to streamer only. There are much better cables out there for the rest of the network.

That was where I tried it first.

 

[keithc]

Thanks for doing that Kenny, and writing up. I know it takes time. (And thanks for your post on the Antipodes Users Forum)

I wonder if this is what promoted your comment of the PhoenixNET sounding ‘veiled in comparison’? I was not there so I do not know what you heard but it is possible that if I was there I might have concluded that the calmer presentation was ultimately better and more musical and I might have defended its presenation as actually being better.

None of this is intended as criticism of what you concluded but hopefully you get my point that one man’s improvement or better might equally be another persons worse or degraded sound.

I brought the Tempus over as I’m doing a review of it compared to the PN and wanted to hear its effect in another system. The review is nearly done and will address this observation.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

That was where I tried it first.

It is also a Cat 7 cable and does not have the range of CAT8, could this be a factor?

 

[Jeffy]

Thanks for doing that Kenny, and writing up. I know it takes time. (And thanks for your post on the Antipodes Users Forum)

Having done a few similar comparisons in my own system I came down firmly on the side of favouring the PhenixNET so that is what I bought and it has so far seen off all other competitors including those using fiber.

I think the first thing to agree in the context of comparing switches is what is exactly is ‘best’ and what exactly is meant by saying that one hears an ‘improvement’ when using one switch compared to another? Without saying what one actually hears then it is difficult to gauge what improvement the tester heard and whether it was a real improvement or not.

In developing my WAVE cables I have become rather sensitive to the effects of noise and I have come to realise that what is sometimes mentioned as being an improvement such as enhanced detail or bigger soundstage or more lifelike is more likely to be the symptoms of noise artefacts.

I should say at this point that I do not have a dog in this race and I do not have any products in the ethernet cable or switch category.

Initially with all switches I have tried I use the track Spiral Stair by Mammal Hands to get a feel of how well I think the switch is isolating my Oladra streamer from my ethernet network. The track has a wonderfully melodic saxophone as the main theme to the music but there is a quite busy background with many different percussion notes. They give the track a wonderful complexity but depending on the switch used this background can tend towards being more forward and eventually becomes rather incessant and to my ear can distract from the saxophone. I have had some people who have heard that difference and they have described it as more detailed or having a bigger soundstage and therefore is better but I much prefer the calmer presentation of the PhoenixNET. And with that calmer presentation I find that eventually I am actually hearing more real detail of instruments and character of notes as opposed to the false detail created when percussion and plucked notes are artificially emphasised.

I wonder if this is what promoted your comment of the PhoenixNET sounding ‘veiled in comparison’? I was not there so I do not know what you heard but it is possible that if I was there I might have concluded that the calmer presentation was ultimately better and more musical and I might have defended its presenation as actually being better.

None of this is intended as criticism of what you concluded but hopefully you get my point that one man’s improvement or better might equally be another persons worse or degraded sound.

What Ethernet cables are you using?

 

[Superdad]

I brought the Tempus over as I’m doing a review of it compared to the PN and wanted to hear its effect in another system. The review is nearly done and will address this observation.

Any chance you will include photos of the inside of the Tempus?
It is nice when manufacturers actually show their work. Especially at such price levels.

 

[kennyb123]

I wonder if this is what promoted your comment of the PhoenixNET sounding ‘veiled in comparison’? I was not there so I do not know what you heard but it is possible that if I was there I might have concluded that the calmer presentation was ultimately better and more musical and I might have defended its presenation as actually being better.

The Diana Krall song I mentioned in my post was unfamiliar to me prior to this session. One of the guys asked to hear it and turned out to be a good track to assess differences between the switches. It’s a live track and there were easy to hear differences in terms of which switch did the best job of fooling me into thinking I was sitting in the venue. The Tempus when fed by the QSA-L provided the clearest window, with the others allowing a veil to sit between me and her (and her piano). The veiling varied per switch to some degree pretty much in the stack ranked order I provided. There were other differences as well that contributed to the ranking. The piano was presented differently as well, with the Tempus/QSA-L passing along more of that natural timbre. It was just more beautiful and more real with the Tempus, and a step back from that with the others.

I hope one of the other guys will share their thoughts as well.

 

[kennyb123]

Just a pity you didn’t try / compare a Muon Pro Ethernet cable as this is another big improvement. Maybe you can do so next time.

It would have been very interesting to hear that as well.